Donna Fox

On July 31st I publically declared August as Product Creation Month on Twitter.  Within minutes I had dozens of people on board joining me in massive product creation for themselves, and supporting my efforts as well.

So I moved into massive action, and on August 2nd I “tweeted” another single message that was responsible for an interesting chain of events.  I talked about how I’d gotten more done on that Saturday morning than I had on most weekdays.  This inspired a conversation with @MattDetrick which resulted in him interviewing me the next day on my thoughts on focus and time management.

You can listen to the entire replay here.  I recommend you download the MP3 (right click and Save-Link-As)  and listen to it while working out, doing the dishes, anyway you can multitask while consumming the info.  It’s a good call.  I talk about the little tips and tricks I’ve developed over the years to be at my most productive.  I discuss how time management is a myth, it’s all about time prioritization and time respect.

I even discuss my weakness, how I treat appointments and obligations to others more highly that the promises I make to myself.  Good stuff.

But perhaps the one topic I covered that the most people said, “what was that, did you catch that?” was my accountability system.

I have an accountability partner, Richelo Killian, that I’ve been meeting with for over two years.  And before that there was another one, and one before her too!  Richelo and I speak almost every day, and often the conversation doesn’t last more than 5-7 minutes.  We keep it up because it works.  We provide encouragement and enthusiasm for each other.  We celebrate victories.  We sympathize defeats.  We were mostly strangers when we started the process, now I consider him one of my closest friends.

I’ve developed a system for accountability that I’ve taught to my private coaching students because it works.  It’s a 5-question script that provides structure for the process, but contains quite a bit of psychological impact worked into it.  Here are the 5 questions:

1. We are getting together this morning (or noon, or evening) because we are both committed to surpassing our goals.  Your goal is (insert their goal).  Is that still your goal today?

2. Yesterday, you said you were going to further your goal by (insert specific action step your partner reported yesterday). Did you accomplish that goal?

3. How did (accomplishing the action step / failing to complete your action step) make you feel?

4. What are you going to do today that will further your goal of (insert goal)?

5. How will you feel when you complete that action step?

That’s it!  It takes only 5 minutes to go through two people’s goals, it’s a simple addition to the day of even the busiest people.  Yet 5 minutes a day has been responsible for me hitting and exceeding more goals then I ever did before I invented this process.

Now go find a partner and together achieve more!

Donna Fox

…Any questions?